Random Musings

I am posting the following 2 reviews in their entirety, because I think they very accurately describe my wife’s second book,IMPRINTS.

Although I have not posted a review of my own, (who’s gonna believe the proud husband?) I affirm every word of these two reviews. The first is by a very wise spiritual director, the second by a professional reviewer and author.
Stephanie and I write in very different styles. I write “theory.” Stephanie cares nothing for “mere theory,” reality is real. Struggle is real, pain is real, sin is real, grace is real, God is real, victory is real. Life is about what is real, or it isn’t real life. That is what Stephanie’s writing is about.
As I said, Stephanie doesn’t write like I do. I don’t write like she does.
But I often wish I did.

Read the reviews, and check out her site. There are links there from which to order this book, and her first one,
Facing Me: Breaking the Bonds of Siezure Confinement 

Stephanie Sawyer is an accomplished writer and musician, an advocate for people dealing with seizure disorders, and a committed Christian. Five years have passed since her first book, Facing Me, was published. In that first book, she shared honestly her struggles with seizure disorder with a goal of helping others. Imprints documents the Lord’s victory in her shattered life. These are vignettes of her journey through stark circumstances, told in this writer’s honest and erudite style.Gut-level Faith
Gut-level Faith
Stephanie Sawyer’s life is proof that if one enters into deep and honest relationship with God, and has the courage to live with an open heart, that heart is going to be changed! It won’t always be fun, it won’t always look pretty, but it will always result in new life, a view through new eyes, and another step toward wholeness. Going to the mat with the living God is not for sissies. But after each round, the bell sounds with joy! I commend Ms. Sawyer for her honest, vulnerable, lay-it-all-out-there style.
- J. Troy

Despite financial downturns, public seizures, fractured relationships, a failing marriage, and disappointments, Sawyer’s indomitable spirit survives. The appearance of a loving Lord Jesus saves her from a destructive life spiraling out of control. Unexpected gifts of compassion from friends and strangers brighten her darkest days. In her lowest hours, God sends who and what she needs. Sawyer considers these human gifts from God to be kindly angels, diamonds of light sent to illuminate her path to wholeness. An empathetic pastor gently eases her back into the Christian community she deserted out of despair. A wise mentor dispenses support and advice in generous measure. Discerning strangers provide kindness and concern in troubled moments.

These are stories of Christ’s healing grace, told by a woman who has struggled and failed but finally emerged victorious. The message throughout is that Jesus can help us overcome any trial if we open our hearts to him as Ms. Sawyer did. She shares her story without self pity or recriminations. The result is heart warming and encouraging to any reader who has ever grappled with illness, rejection, sorrow, or failure. Imprints is Ms. Sawyer’s gift to us all and highly recommended.

Review by Laurel Johnson

 

I won’t attribute the source, since I can’t now find it; but in the blog of a friend of mine the question of damnation came up as an example of a religious dogma which cannot be accepted.

I beg to differ. If one accepts at least for the purpose of this discussion certain propositions about God, and heaven (I will reference these propositions as we go along) then some sort of doctrine of damnation is inevitable. The only other alternative is for our independence and autonomy to be an illusion.

Orthodox Christians may object that my argument is very short on appeals to the Bible. That is by design. In our current climate, appealing to Holy Scripture is mostly preaching to the choir. While I do regard the Bible as God’s Word, written, and that it accurately and reliably contains what God intends to say to me thereby, my contention is with those who don’t share that view. If I am going to appeal to an authority, it must be to an authority to which both sides yield. I choose for this purpose natural reason. For me, reason is a gift of God and sign of His presence. It thus must stand under an even higher authority. As Hooker said, it stands underneath Scripture. But whereas my ideas are thus subject to correction from the witness of the Bible, others may not be impressed by that witness. I would wish to show that even natural reason joins with the Bible in asserting this doctrine as true

The first proposition I will claim about God is that God is truth. We are told that, when He was asked by Moses to give His own name, He said “I am that I am… Tell them ‘I AM’ has sent you”

A nonchristian diest (or even in my limited understanding, a Taoist) may well define God as “that which is” without getting into any issue about whether or not God is personal, or has intelligent awareness, or even might be a Wordsworthean/Star-Wars “Force” that rolls through all things. God is what He is. He is not what we imagine Him to be, not what I understand Him to be, not what all the great thinkers, theologians, priests, and philosophers, individually or by collective agreement, say that He is. God is what He is. God is truth, and undivided, unlimited truth. “The whole truth and nothing but the truth.” Kind of makes the “… so help you God” part of that swearing seem pretty appropriate.

A second proposition is that I believe that there is an existence after death. My full belief goes a great deal further than that, but for the sake of this article, this is enough to claim. I believe that this existence involves a reunification, or a unification if you prefer, with God, with “that which is.”

One of the truths in this life has been that we are free to acknowledge, disregard or reject any fact we wish. We can reject or ignore facts ranging from our obligations to our creditors to the laws of gravity. But we are not free from the consequences of the actions we then take. If I ignore my debts, I can expect to be sued, or foreclosed upon. If I jump off the house, I will fall to the ground. I can ignore or deny reality, but reality will act upon me in a way consistent with what it is, not with what I proclaim it to be.

As to “What is Heaven like?” I have very little opinion. I think we have been given some peeks in the Bible, but I’ve already declared that authority outside the scope of this discussion.

I do differ with what seems to be the prevailing unexamined view of many people. That view seems to include some sort of really nice place to live, and some sort of ability to interact with the other inhabitants, perhaps some sort of activity or occupation, but otherwise pretty much like the life we know. I don’t believe this.

Or rather, I don’t believe it sufficient. If the goal of this creation is as I believe union with God, then it means that we are to be united with total Truth, with all that is, total light and no darkness at all. In the words of St. Paul, “we shall know as we are known.”

So, is all this clarity to be presented to us inexorably, as inescapable as the light of day washing over us in the morning? Well, I think yes. Will everyone just automatically accept that truth? We often don’t accept it here. I have more than once put my head under my pillow and tried to deny the dawn.

If we continue as ourselves, with our independence, then we continue in that ability to deny the truth.

But what are the consequences of that denial? It is tempting to say that God should “let them in” anyway, that He can and will consider our difficulties, know we did the best we could, and let us in. I share that sentiment. But if I think it through, what do I mean by “let us in”? Let us in to what? How can I be let in to a union with all truth while at the same time saying that truth isn’t true (while knowing the truth)? Insisting on bringing the falsehood into Truth would destroy truth. I cannot insist on truth and reject it at the same time. I cannot be united with God and deny Him with the same voice. Now, it may be that God will continue to work with each of us until everyone accepts the truth. I deeply wish this to be true. I cannot think it likely, but that is another discussion. My point though, is that we cannot be united with the ultimate reality of the universe while also rejecting reality. That ultimate, final separation from God is damnation.

So, then, what is meant by the talk of Christians such as myself when we say that those who accept Jesus are the only ones who will be saved? Well, we mean quite a few things, but for this discussion, one only. Let’s say, again for the sake of argument, that God did in fact do certain acts so that we could be set free from all the lies we have told ourselves and others, in thought word and deed. If I find myself in that realm of perfect light, truth and clarity I will know beyond doubt exactly who I am, what I have done and the falseness in me, and how God has brought me to this place. What if that knowledge is so unwelcome to me that I say “NO! It CAN’T be that!… I know the truth, and it is —–” If I, with Truth seated right before me insist on my own imaginings of fables, haw can I be united with that which I reject?

Some will likely point out that this sword cuts both ways: if on that day Truth is much different than I believe, if my theology is all wrong, I will be in deep trouble. Well, they would be right. But it is not the rightness or wrongness of my theology that matters. It is rather how tightly will I cling to my own thoughts, my own imaginings, my own opinions, my own lies, my own…, my own…, my, my, my,…” for infinity. Will I bow my head and my heart to the one who said “I am the Truth” and accept Him instead? It isn’t about right doctrine, it’s about accepting the truth, in preference to ourselves, when we are invited into it.

Does God damn? Yes. Can we damn ourselves? Yes. I think that ultimately those are the same questions. Our refusal to accept the only reality that is, and this includes who God is, who we are, and what He has done for us; Our refusal to accept the only Truth there is means we cannot be joined to it. And being outside of truth is damnation however ther rest of the details are filled out.

Mr. D. C. Toedt, who is a friend of mine from my church, writes a blog called The Questioning Christian
In a post entitled “The world isn’t broken, it’s just unfinished”
He suggests

1. Suppose hypothetically that God is still creating the world, using processes we’re only beginning to kinda-sorta understand — processes that entail generating lots of variations and keeping the ones that “work” as the starting point for later variations.

(These processes of the ongoing creation seem to include us as construction workers, incidentally: our powers of imagination let us generate new variations, while our powers of perception and memory let us see and remember — imperfectly — what does or doesn’t work.)

This hypothesis is not totally implausible, not if you take a long view of what we think we know of history. …

Now, D.C. (for whom I have a great deal of respect) and I disagree about much in the church, including what is the very nature of “church” and even what it means to be christian. I would argue that to be a christian means to accept Jesus as Lord, as being God incarnate who died in the flesh and rose again so that we might be released from the bondage of our sin. I will let D.C. speak for himself, which he does quite well, but he would more describe it as following the commandments of Jesus in that we are to love God and our neighbor, and teach others to do the same.

But in this post, I think he has it pretty much right. The main difference is that where he suggests that this world may not be “broken” just “unfinished,” I believe that through the fall it is broken, and will be fixed.
So where the prescription for completion is totally different, and supremely important, I think his observation about our place on the time-line of creation is very interesting. The following is my response to him.

D.C., Surprising as it may be, I am in almost exact agreement with you here. (Of course, “almost” is always where the difficulties lie!)
I think that when/if the definitive story of this age is written, we will find that the time in which we now live has been somewhere early in Genesis. We, particularly my philosophical edge of the church, tend to place it closer to the Revelation.

Like many, I’ve often been made uneasy by the passages which seem to attribute evil to God. Certainly, God permits evil to exist. Thus, if one starts as I do from the omniscience and omnipotence of God, together with absolute goodness, the existence of evil must somehow be in accord with His purpose.

My own thoughts are derived from my understanding of God as triune, and a perhaps unwarranted interpretation that “let us make man in our own image” refers in part back to characteristics of trinity. Among those characteristics are the capacity to receive and give love voluntarily, without compulsion, both to God and our fellows.

Following in a very truncated form, Jung suggested that the two great tasks of personal development were first, detachment, then reattachment. That in order to love with a mature love, there must be the potential for separation, and as “Murphy’s law” suggests, anything that can happen (particularly bad), will happen. If separation is possible, it will happen. But true growth transcends this point, and redeems the relationship by re-identification: with one’s parents, society, the universe at large.

I think perhaps that in order to create such a creature as God has in mind, this is part of the process. This fall, or pulling away, followed by a potential reunion. The “almost” in my first sentence comes in here. Some see that reunion as coming through continued growth on our part, convincing us to return to a love of God and our brothers. Others hold to the traditional Christian view that the return took a redemptive intervention from the Creator toward the created.

But in broad terms, this seems to address those places where evil is dismissed in the bible by an appeal to Divine sovereignty, as in Job, where the final answer to Job seems to be “trust me, it will all work out in the end” or references to the clay having no business critiquing the potter. Finally, there is St. John’s observation (in his first epistle 3:2) that “it has not yet appeared what we shall be”

I am not a universalist, although I am probably as close to one as I can be without turning in my traditionalist membership card. But at the end of the day, I think we will find that this has all been preparation, and absolutely unavoidable preparation for what is to be. With Dame Julian, I think we will find that “all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”

As a funeral director, I hear many interesting things at funerals! A while back I heard a song that got me thinking. A folk singer sang a song something along the lines of “I don’t know if there are sweethearts in heaven, but if there are, I want you for mine.” It was sung on behalf of the decedent as a proclamation of his enduring love for his widow. It was very touching, and very sweet. Even while I liked the song, though, I was bothered a bit by the unbiblical nature of the lyric. It was American folk religion, rather than classic orthodox Christianity. Its basic framework was the idea that I may not be good enough for entrance into heaven, etc. No thought of justification by grace through faith, or in the atonement of Christ. Even the “title thought” of sweethearts in heaven goes against Jesus’ declaration-  “For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage…” (Matthew 22:30, ESV).  This declaration is the foundation of the line in the traditional vow “…till death do us part.”

The more I thought about it though, the less happy I was with simply rejecting the song as contrary to scripture. There is such a strong internal feeling that such a love should be eternal. It is a gift of God, a creation of God as a reflection of His own nature.
St. Paul proclaims that “Love never ends” and that “So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”  I am unhappy with the idea that God’s gifts are time-limited. This gift of marital love is the way we most nearly enter in to the three-yet-one idea of Trinity. The next closest reflection is the church, interestingly called “the bride of Christ” thus referring back to marriage. Ours of course is a binary, rather than triune arrangement (setting aside for the moment the contested idea that the Sprit proceeds from the unity of the Father and the Son). But by becoming “one flesh” while remaining two distinct persons, bound together strictly by love, we get to enter into something very near to the character of God. The more I contemplate this idea, the more I understand of my own failure to live it out, thus my own divorce.

So if this gift of love is itself eternal, and yet Jesus’ proclamation true, then there must be more to the story. After all, Paul told us in that same chapter of 1 Corinthians that we now see “through a glass darkly.” How is eternal love to be understood? What is it’s role, if not simply annihilated and discarded?

Many things are set aside as Holy, so we may learn how to treat holy things. When we have learned holiness, we may be allowed to think of all things as holy, all things as given by God, and designed for His purpose. IF we start with the idea that all things are of the same worth, we will treat all things as low and common. We mark some things, say communion vessels, as holy, to be given special appreciation and care as the vessels of God. Then, when we are thoroughly comfortable with how to treat these things as special, God may whisper to us

I had been pondering a part of the creed little used in the branch of the Church I grew up in: “He descended into hell” particularly in connection with Jesus’ words from the cross “it is finished” and “Into thy hands I commend my spirit.”

As to the descent, I now find great comfort and meaning in the idea that our Lord descended as far as it is possible for a man to go in order to rescue us. If any be not rescued, it is not because they had sunk below some “crush zone” from whence no rescue was or is possible. God did not become an angel to get near us, or a Great Ruler, to lead our culture, or even an Important Person, but He became a poor man, with no place to lay His head, despised and afflicted. He did not stop there, but descended even lower to a criminal’s death, then still lower, until He had reached the very bottom of where a human soul could go, and from thence returned to Glory, leading captivity captive. He nowhere stopped short; there was no soul on whom the Light did not shine.

The other question is this: If Jesus still had the “descended into hell” to do, why did He say from the cross “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit” and “It is finished”?

Perhaps it is because THAT was the moment of victory- Yes, He descended still lower, but not as a condemned soul: He descended into Hell as an invader. In attempting to drag the hero in by force, satan (in his own interpreting of the events) took advantage of the incomprehensible descent of God into the incarnation. He trapped Him by the betrayal, used the fallen nature of Judas and the compassion and truthfulness of the incarnate Jesus to dig his claws into his feet, hands, side and head;

“Now I have conquered you- now I will drag the heir down to death and below. “If I indeed cannot rule in heaven, I can rule over heaven in my own realm, from my own throne.”

Such was his vision of the events of these years, and today, this “good Friday” as his day of triumph. It was not God’s vision.

As in judo, where one uses the very force of the adversary against him, so Jesus accepted the wounds of the great enemy. He accepted the pull, and the summons. But it was not as satan expected. At the moment of triumph (and satan thought it was his own), at the moment of the Death, at the moment when it was finished, Jesus accepted the momentum with which satan drew Him, and descended deeper than death, into the kingdom of death.But satan’s force was used against him (as a judo throw), and his realm was penetrated by the King of Glory. Jesus went down, but with the victory won. He went down in triumph to lead forth all who would be rescued.

Thanks be to God.

(This was actually written about a year ago, in May ‘06, before I began these notes. It was previously posted here )

I have been pondering Calvin’s idea of “irresistible grace” (the I in the TULIP mnemonic),  in light of the obvious truth that if I am dead in my sin, I do not become “spontaneously regenerate”, by my own choice, any more than did I become “spontaneously generate” , by my own choice, the first time. And also of the commissioning of the apostles and of us to spread the gospel, of the v. in John about “…as many as received Him, to them He gave power to become children of God.” (I assume the orig. refers to an active reception, rather than passive?)

I have also been thinking in the light of what I understand of God’s ultimate purpose for this creation, limited as that understanding is. That purpose, that God desired to create a being which could give and receive total love, in total submission, and total freedom. As is modeled in the Holy Trinity.

In the original creation, Adam gained life not of his own choice, clay having no power to choose. He was given freedom, and the ability to respond to the love of God by obedience, by the gift of the prohibition. By choosing wrongly, he lost his freedom, we became bound in sin, and dead in our trespass. In once again quickening us by His irresistible grace, does it seem consistent that He would take us from being bound in sin, to being bound in grace, without passing through the stage where the first Adam fell? If “the free gift of God is eternal life” is not one of His gifts to me the ability to make a “free gift to God” of my response to Him?

Admittedly, by choosing to respond “Yes” to God, we are giving Him a gift only because He has empowered us to give it. I was powerless before His calling. I was powerless even to say no. When my daughter was 5, she could buy me a gift only by asking me for the money. But I was more touched so, not less. And “all things come of Thee oh Lord, and of Thine own have we given Thee”

The ability to respond affirmatively, in freedom, to God (which carries with it the possibility of responding negatively) would seem to be very close to the first gift bestowed irresistibly upon us by His grace.